The Goul'dorock empire was faced with a dilemma. With its power challenged coreward by the races of the galactic senate, the New Orions chief among them, and rimward by the technological might of the Zicho the Silicoids must tread the fine line between war and peace. But one thing is for sure, if Mineral life is to be ascendant in the galaxy it must take its place by force.
Overview
The Goul'dorock empire has grown to control the rimward half of its starting arm and a large chunk of corespace that once belonged to a senate Nommo Faction.
After the integration of the Falar there was a slight disagreement over a Nommo outpost that the lizards had invaded. We came out ahead despite some spirited resistance and used the captured world to boost our research. However, this early expansion came at a price. Our focus on the fleet and industry left us behind in tech and some poor rolls means the research worlds we do have are much less efficient than the competition. Also, with a large empire comes long borders and many hungry eyes.
Coreward, a Saurian race based in the Samson System is connected to the heart of the empire by a wormhole has had its expansion checked by our fortress world Hoshi 1. Small and backward, the Dithuro will be our first obstacle to a greater prescience in galactic politics.
Note: There are two factions in this shot. One downside of having 30 races in a game is that you run out of colors.
Thru the izabel system lies the Psilon nation of Eklvea. Too small to be a threat but to large for a easy victory. Fear and a large fleet stationed at Chiba keep them in line but sooner or later mutual prejudice will force a conflict.
Rimward exploration has so far been stopped by two large drone ships stationed on the star lanes that lead to the rest of the arm but we have opened communications with two factions on the frontier. The larger race has made diplomatic overtures toward us and we have accepted as our ambitions lie at the core.
The greatest threat in the galaxy comes from the race of humans known as the Zicho. Much more powerful than their small area of space would seem to indicate. Their fleet rivals our in size and is much more technologically advanced. A war of attrition would favor our greater industrial base but would be costly and take resources away from the Coreward fronts.
Our first order of business is taking out the two guardians that occupy the star lanes rimward. The New Orions set them up to protect something and I want to know what. Guardians are pretty tough so a complete redesign of our fleet is needed in order to destroy them.
One of the techs found in the ruins of the Nommo home world was the design for a large direct fire gun mounted to the frame of a starship. This would give the gun much greater range and damage at the cost of space and rate of fire. Now practically speaking there isn't much use for spinal mounts but they are really, really cool and I can't think of any better weapon to mount on our Flagship Bb The Final Countdown. All of our SAGs will be build around one of these with the remainder of the anti-ship firepower provided by the less flashy but more practical Rock Creature class Armored Cruisers. The point defense duties will fall to Rolling Stone class Destroyers and Hummingbird class Light Carriers will provide air cover.
As we are entering a bit of a dry spell for fighter based weapons our Carrier fleets will start to take a support role, shielding our SAGs from missiles and ground based bombers. The overall composition remains the same with Feldspar class Fleet Carriers with Point defense and some limited Anti-Ship cover from Pavement class Destroyer Leaders.
Bad Idea file: During the invasion of the Nommo I was so impressed with the performance of the Cvls that I decided to experiment with an armed and armored version of my standard fleet carrier named the CvA telecaster. It didn't have enough fighters to make it a successful carrier and was so poorly armed for its weight that it couldn't fight up close. I really wish Moo 3 had a refit system just so I could make the ones that survived the war Ore freighters or something. Really bad idea.
The last design change has to do with troop transport. With tonnages increasing new, multitask ships are becoming a possibility. The new LHD Rynhorn is able to overwhelm isolated planet defense and then single handedly drop an entire army on the now defenseless world. Hopefully this will speed up the process of conquering large sections of space by allowing the main body of the fleet to press deeper into enemy space while the remaining worlds are pacified.
The First guardian was defending the old home world of the Alkari.
The Alkari are a race of space pterodactyls that were cut in an effort to remove some of more B movie aspects of the Master of Orion universe.
The next was guarding the Bulrathi home world of Ursa.
The Bulrathi are another race that didn't make the cut from 2 to 3. I guess they are supposed to be bears but they always looked like bulldogs to me. however, they are still the most sought after troops in the galaxy and we would do well to keep an eye out for them.
After destroying the two Guardians with some minor losses we turn our attention to the minor Senate race thru the Hoshi wormhole and our rightful place in the galaxy. Most of their worlds are light populated and not worth the lives it would take to invade. The victory is sweet but the celebration short as a message arrives from our new colony on Ursa 1.
Crap
Cut Content
One thing I failed to mention is the "X" we discovered on Ursa, that was because its primary purpose was to deal with a mechanic that was almost entirely cut from the game. The ponderously name Heavy Foot of the Government.
One of the longest running problems in strategy games is exponential growth. On one hand, no one likes a game where you know it the first 10 turns who is going to win but on the other if there is one thing gamers will not cotton it is negative reinforcement. Moo3's answer was HFoG. The original plan was for HFoG to cause your planets to create less money. Every planet you controlled would increase it so smaller nations could compete with larger. As you unlocked techs to reduce it you could get larger without penalties. In its desperate attempt to make Moo3 marketable Quicksilver removed most of the mallus from HFoG late in development and since gamers hate, hate, hate, systems like this the modders never put it back.
Questions and Comments
What game does everyone think best handles exponential growth?
Personal vote: Civ 4
Posts
Last Time
The Goul'dorock empire has grown to control the rimward half of its starting arm and a large chunk of corespace that once belonged to a senate Nommo Faction.
After the integration of the Falar there was a slight disagreement over a Nommo outpost that the lizards had invaded. We came out ahead despite some spirited resistance and used the captured world to boost our research. However, this early expansion came at a price. Our focus on the fleet and industry left us behind in tech and some poor rolls means the research worlds we do have are much less efficient than the competition. Also, with a large empire comes long borders and many hungry eyes.
Coreward, a Saurian race based in the Samson System is connected to the heart of the empire by a wormhole has had its expansion checked by our fortress world Hoshi 1. Small and backward, the Dithuro will be our first obstacle to a greater prescience in galactic politics.
Note: There are two factions in this shot. One downside of having 30 races in a game is that you run out of colors.
Thru the izabel system lies the Psilon nation of Eklvea. Too small to be a threat but to large for a easy victory. Fear and a large fleet stationed at Chiba keep them in line but sooner or later mutual prejudice will force a conflict.
Rimward exploration has so far been stopped by two large drone ships stationed on the star lanes that lead to the rest of the arm but we have opened communications with two factions on the frontier. The larger race has made diplomatic overtures toward us and we have accepted as our ambitions lie at the core.
The greatest threat in the galaxy comes from the race of humans known as the Zicho. Much more powerful than their small area of space would seem to indicate. Their fleet rivals our in size and is much more technologically advanced. A war of attrition would favor our greater industrial base but would be costly and take resources away from the Coreward fronts.
Our first order of business is taking out the two guardians that occupy the star lanes rimward. The New Orions set them up to protect something and I want to know what. Guardians are pretty tough so a complete redesign of our fleet is needed in order to destroy them.
One of the techs found in the ruins of the Nommo home world was the design for a large direct fire gun mounted to the frame of a starship. This would give the gun much greater range and damage at the cost of space and rate of fire. Now practically speaking there isn't much use for spinal mounts but they are really, really cool and I can't think of any better weapon to mount on our Flagship Bb The Final Countdown. All of our SAGs will be build around one of these with the remainder of the anti-ship firepower provided by the less flashy but more practical Rock Creature class Armored Cruisers. The point defense duties will fall to Rolling Stone class Destroyers and Hummingbird class Light Carriers will provide air cover.
As we are entering a bit of a dry spell for fighter based weapons our Carrier fleets will start to take a support role, shielding our SAGs from missiles and ground based bombers. The overall composition remains the same with Feldspar class Fleet Carriers with Point defense and some limited Anti-Ship cover from Pavement class Destroyer Leaders.
Bad Idea file: During the invasion of the Nommo I was so impressed with the performance of the Cvls that I decided to experiment with an armed and armored version of my standard fleet carrier named the CvA telecaster. It didn't have enough fighters to make it a successful carrier and was so poorly armed for its weight that it couldn't fight up close. I really wish Moo 3 had a refit system just so I could make the ones that survived the war Ore freighters or something. Really bad idea.
The last design change has to do with troop transport. With tonnages increasing new, multitask ships are becoming a possibility. The new LHD Rynhorn is able to overwhelm isolated planet defense and then single handedly drop an entire army on the now defenseless world. Hopefully this will speed up the process of conquering large sections of space by allowing the main body of the fleet to press deeper into enemy space while the remaining worlds are pacified.
The First guardian was defending the old home world of the Alkari.
The Alkari are a race of space pterodactyls that were cut in an effort to remove some of more B movie aspects of the Master of Orion universe.
The next was guarding the Bulrathi home world of Ursa.
The Bulrathi are another race that didn't make the cut from 2 to 3. I guess they are supposed to be bears but they always looked like bulldogs to me. however, they are still the most sought after troops in the galaxy and we would do well to keep an eye out for them.
After destroying the two Guardians with some minor losses we turn our attention to the minor Senate race thru the Hoshi wormhole and our rightful place in the galaxy. Most of their worlds are light populated and not worth the lives it would take to invade. The victory is sweet but the celebration short as a message arrives from our new colony on Ursa 1.
Crap
One thing I failed to mention is the "X" we discovered on Ursa, that was because its primary purpose was to deal with a mechanic that was almost entirely cut from the game. The ponderously name Heavy Foot of the Government.
One of the longest running problems in strategy games is exponential growth. On one hand, no one likes a game where you know it the first 10 turns who is going to win but on the other if there is one thing gamers will not cotton it is negative reinforcement. Moo3's answer was HFoG. The original plan was for HFoG to cause your planets to create less money. Every planet you controlled would increase it so smaller nations could compete with larger. As you unlocked techs to reduce it you could get larger without penalties. In its desperate attempt to make Moo3 marketable Quicksilver removed most of the mallus from HFoG late in development and since gamers hate, hate, hate, systems like this the modders never put it back.
What game does everyone think best handles exponential growth?
Personal vote: Civ 4